Getting the Most from Your Training Investment

The training and development of your staff costs money – a lot of money. So it needs to add real value to your business.

Acorn are totally focused on making sure all our training and coaching is practical, realistic and in line with our clients’ business goals, and advocate a partnership approach. This means making sure you are aware of the things you can do to make sure you get the best value possible from your training and coaching investment.

We have outlined below some top tips to make sure you are getting the most from your investment.

1. Relationship with your training provider

Aim to build a trusting and open relationship with each of your training providers to ensure they really understand your organisation. You can help this by:

Making sure they have access to and understand the goals, culture and working environment of the organisation. This will allow tutors to build content that can be practically applied in the workplace

Encouraging the right level of support within the business to ensure that people are given opportunity to apply the training back in the workplace

Exchanging feedback and ideas so the tutors can fine-tune the training and the support according to the way it’s being received within the business

2. What’s in it for the business?

Make sure that all training is 100% relevant to the business. Make sure all staff that are required to attend training or coaching sessions, are fully aware of the purpose of the programmes. How does it fit their individual needs, team needs and in turn, the needs of the business.

We find that almost all training delegates perform better, and are able to apply their new knowledge better, if they are clear on the business goals.

3. What’s in it for me?

Attending a training course is an investment of personal time and energy which can have implications on the team or department when training absences can cause issues. We find that it is useful if delegates are informed, in advance, on how the course will help them. We encourage people to define how the training will contribute to short and long term goals and ambitions.

4. Communication

Poor quality communication prior to any course, can create a barrier and attitude issues – which can hinder effectiveness of the programme. Making sure all delegates know about the purpose, content and logistics increases their commitment to the programme.

High quality communication to other people about the objectives and the timings increases the support that others give to people returning from training programmes.

5. Ongoing support

If training is to have the desired effect on business performance people need ongoing support in order to implement their learning. You can assist this by offering support such as:

Encouraging line managers and peers to ask, ”how did it go?” and “what ideas have you brought back” type questions

Building action plans into appraisal discussions

Assist in the delegation of workload pre and post attendance

Providing new responsibilities to try new skills

Creating specific business projects for people to practice skills and build confidence

Providing internal or external coaching support

These simple actions can make a massive difference in creating change across an organisation.